Soviets are – the Russian form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. If a Marxist theorist, writing a work on the dictatorship of the proletariat, had genuinely studied this phenomenon (rather than repeating petty-bourgeois lamentations against dictatorship, as Kautsky does, echoing Menshevik melodies), then such a theorist would have given a general definition of dictatorship, and then examined its particular, national form – the Soviets – and provided a critique of them as one of the forms of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

It is understandable that one cannot expect anything serious from Kautsky, after his liberal "processing" of Marx's doctrine on dictatorship. But it is highly characteristic to observe how he approached the question of what the Soviets are, and how he dealt with this question.

The Soviets, he writes, recalling their emergence in 1905, created such a "form of proletarian organization, which was the most comprehensive (umfassendste) of all, since it embraced all wage laborers" (p. 31). In 1905, they were only local corporations; in 1917, they became an all-Russian organization.

"Already now," Kautsky continues, "the Soviet organization has behind it a great and glorious history. And an even more mighty history awaits it – and not only in Russia. Everywhere it turns out that against the gigantic forces at the disposal of financial capital in economic and political respects, the old methods of economic and political struggle of the proletariat are inadequate" (versagen; this German expression is somewhat stronger than "inadequate" and somewhat weaker than "powerless") "they cannot be abandoned – they remain necessary for normal times – but from time to time there arise before them such tasks whose fulfillment they are incapable of, such tasks where success promises only the conjunction of all political and economic instruments of force of the working class" (32).

There follows Kautsky's reasoning about the mass strike and about how "the bureaucracy of trade unions," as necessary as the trade unions themselves, "is not suited to direct such mighty mass battles, which are increasingly becoming the sign of the times…"

"…Thus," Kautsky concludes, "the Soviet organization is one of the most important phenomena of our time. It promises to acquire decisive significance in the great decisive battles between capital and labor toward which we are moving.

But are we entitled to demand even more from the Soviets? The Bolsheviks, who after the November revolution (in the new style, i.e., in our terms, the October revolution) of 1917 acquired, together with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, a majority in the Russian Soviets of Workers' Deputies, proceeded, after the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, to transform the Soviet, which had until then been the fighting organization of one class, into a state organization. They destroyed the democracy which the Russian people had conquered in the March revolution (in the new style, in our terms, the February revolution). Correspondingly, the Bolsheviks ceased to call themselves social-democrats. They call themselves communists" (p. 33, Kautsky's emphasis).

Anyone familiar with Russian Menshevik literature immediately sees how slavishly Kautsky copies Martov, Axelrod, Stein, and Company. Precisely "slavishly," for Kautsky absurdly distorts facts in deference to Menshevik prejudices. Kautsky did not bother, for example, to check with his informants, such as the Berlin Stein or the Stockholm Axelrod, when the questions were raised about renaming the Bolsheviks as communists and about the significance of the Soviets as state organizations. Had Kautsky made this simple inquiry, he would not have written lines that provoke laughter, for both these questions were raised by the Bolsheviks in April 1917 – for example, in my "Theses" of April 4, 1917{117} – that is, long before the October Revolution of 1917 (not to mention the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly on January 5, 1918).

But the Kautsky reasoning I have quoted in full is the crux of the entire question of the Soviets. The crux lies precisely in whether the Soviets should strive to become state organizations (the Bolsheviks in April 1917 put forward the slogan: "All Power to the Soviets" and at the conference of the Bolshevik Party in that same April 1917, the Bolsheviks declared that they were not satisfied with the bourgeois parliamentary republic, but demanded a workers' and peasants' republic of the type of the Commune or of the type of the Soviets); – or whether the Soviets should not strive toward this, should not seize power into their own hands, should not become state organizations, but should remain "fighting organizations" of one "class" (as Martov expressed it, decorously embellishing with his innocent wishes the fact that the Soviets, under Menshevik leadership, were an instrument of subjugating the workers to the bourgeoisie).

Kautsky has slavishly repeated Martov's words, taking fragments from the theoretical dispute between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and transferring these fragments, without criticism and without sense, onto general-theoretical, pan-European ground. Out came such a mess as would provoke Homeric laughter in any conscious Russian worker if he were to familiarize himself with Kautsky's reasoning quoted above.

With such laughter will all European workers (except a handful of hardened social-imperialists) greet Kautsky when we explain to them what is at issue here.

Kautsky has done Martov a bear's service by reducing, with extraordinary clarity, Martov's error to absurdity. Indeed, look at what emerged from Kautsky.

The Soviets embrace all wage laborers. Against financial capital, the old methods of economic and political struggle of the proletariat are insufficient. The Soviets face a great role not only in Russia. They will play a decisive role in the great decisive battles between capital and labor in Europe. So says Kautsky.

Excellent. "Decisive battles between capital and labor" – do they not decide the question of which of these two classes will seize state power?

Nothing of the kind. God forbid.

In the "decisive" battles, the Soviets, embracing all wage laborers, must not become state organizations!

But what is the state?

The state is nothing other than a machine for the suppression of one class by another.

Thus, the oppressed class, the vanguard of all the toilers and exploited in contemporary society, must strive toward "decisive battles between capital and labor," but must not touch that machine by which capital suppresses labor! – – Must not break this machine! – – Must not use its all-embracing organization for the suppression of the exploiters!

Splendid, excellent, Mr. Kautsky! "We" recognize class struggle – as all liberals recognize it, i.e., without overthrowing the bourgeoisie…

Here is where Kautsky's complete break both with Marxism and with socialism becomes evident. This is a transition, in fact, to the side of the bourgeoisie, which is prepared to permit anything except the transformation of the organizations of the oppressed class into state organizations. Here Kautsky can by no means save his position, which reconciles everything and evades all deep contradictions with phrases.

Either Kautsky renounces any transfer of state power into the hands of the working class, or he permits the working class to seize the old, bourgeois state machine, but in no way permits it to smash, to break it, to replace it with a new, proletarian one. In either way of "interpreting" and "explaining" Kautsky's reasoning, the break with Marxism and transition to the side of the bourgeoisie is evident.

Already in the *Communist Manifesto*, when speaking of what state the victorious working class needs, Marx wrote: "the state, i.e., the proletariat organized as the ruling class"{118}. Now appears a man who claims to continue being a Marxist and declares that the proletariat, organized universally and waging "decisive struggle" with capital, must not make its class organization a state organization. "Superstitious faith in the state," about which Engels wrote in 1891 that it "had passed in Germany into the general consciousness of the bourgeoisie and even many workers"{119} – here is what Kautsky has revealed. Fight, workers, – our philistine "agrees" (to this the bourgeois also "agrees," since the workers are fighting anyway and one need only think of how to break the point of their sword), – fight, but do not dare to win! Do not destroy the state machine of the bourgeoisie, do not replace the bourgeois "state organization" with a proletarian "state organization"!

Whoever seriously shared the Marxist view that the state is nothing other than a machine for the suppression of one class by another, whoever has given any thought to this truth, could never have come to such nonsense – that proletarian organizations, capable of vanquishing financial capital, must not transform into state organizations. Precisely at this point the petty bourgeois has revealed himself, for whom the state is "still all the same" something extra-class or supra-class. Why indeed would it be permitted for the proletariat, "one class," to wage decisive war against capital, which dominates not only the proletariat but the entire people, the entire petty bourgeoisie, the entire peasantry – but not permitted for the proletariat, "one class," to transform its organization into a state organization? Because the petty bourgeois fears class struggle and does not carry it to its conclusion, to the main point.

Kautsky became completely entangled and gave himself away entirely. Mark this: he himself admitted that Europe is moving toward decisive battles between capital and labor, and that the old methods of economic and political struggle of the proletariat are insufficient. But these very methods consisted in the use of bourgeois democracy. Consequently?..

Kautsky was afraid to think through what follows from this.

…Consequently, only a reactionary, an enemy of the working class, a lackey of the bourgeoisie, can now paint the charms of bourgeois democracy and prattle about pure democracy, turning his face toward a dead past. Bourgeois democracy was progressive in relation to the Middle Ages, and it had to be used. But now it is insufficient for the working class. Now one must look not backward, but forward – toward replacing bourgeois democracy with proletarian democracy. And if the preparatory work for the proletarian revolution, the training and formation of the proletarian army were possible (and necessary) within the framework of the bourgeois-democratic state, then, once "decisive battles" have begun, to limit the proletariat to these bounds means to be a traitor to the proletarian cause, means to be a renegade.

Kautsky found himself in a particularly ridiculous predicament, for he repeated Martov's argument without noticing that Martov's argument rests on another argument, which Kautsky does not have! Martov says (and Kautsky repeats after him) that Russia is not yet ripe for socialism, from which it naturally follows: it is too early to transform the Soviets from organs of struggle into state organizations (read: it is timely to turn the Soviets, with the help of Menshevik leaders, into organs of subjugating the workers to imperialist bourgeoisie). But Kautsky cannot say directly that Europe is not ripe for socialism. Kautsky wrote in 1909, when he was not yet a renegade, that one cannot now fear a premature revolution, that a traitor would be one who, from fear of defeat, would renounce revolution. Kautsky does not dare openly renounce this. And out comes such nonsense, which reveals to the end all the stupidity and cowardice of the petty bourgeois: on the one hand, Europe is ripe for socialism and is moving toward decisive battles of labor with capital – and on the other hand, the fighting organization (i.e., developing, growing, strengthening in struggle), the organization of the proletariat, the vanguard and organizer, leader of the oppressed, cannot be transformed into a state organization!

From a practical-political standpoint, the idea that Soviets are necessary as a fighting organization but must not transform into state organizations is even infinitely more absurd than from a theoretical standpoint. Even in peacetime, when there is no revolutionary situation, mass struggle of workers against capitalists – for example, a mass strike – provokes terrible rage on both sides, extraordinary passion in the struggle, constant references by the bourgeoisie to the fact that it remains and wants to remain "master in its own house," and so forth. And during a revolution, when political life is boiling, such an organization as the Soviets, embracing all workers of all branches of industry, then all soldiers and all toiling and poorest rural population – such an organization naturally, through the course of struggle, by the simple "logic" of thrust and counter-thrust, inevitably comes to pose the question squarely. An attempt to occupy a middle position, to "reconcile" the proletariat and bourgeoisie, is stupidity and ends in a pitiful crash: so it was in Russia with the preaching of Martov and other Mensheviks, and so inevitably will it be in Germany and other countries if the Soviets develop at all widely, manage to unite and strengthen. To tell the Soviets: fight, but do not seize state power yourselves, do not become state organizations – means to preach cooperation between classes and "social peace" between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. It is absurd even to think that such a position in bitter struggle could lead to anything but shameful collapse. Sitting between two stools – this is Kautsky's eternal fate. He pretends to disagree with opportunists on theory, while in fact he agrees with them on everything essential (that is, on everything relating to revolution) in practice.